


One Man's Trash

by alex_greene



Category: Fan Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-16
Updated: 2012-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 12:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_greene/pseuds/alex_greene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you value?</p>
<p>Short flash fiction on the topic of what people truly need to value, originally written for National Flash Fiction Day, 2012 05 16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man's Trash

'Hypnosis?'

I looked at Marta Williams and nodded. 'Hypnosis,' I replied.

'But I don't want to end up barking like a dog,' Marta said, taking another drag of her cigarette. She blew it out and stamped the butt into the ground, before looking at me.

'Doesn't work like that,' I said. 'It worked for me, you know.'

Marta grinned. 'You? I didn't know you smoke.'

I shook my head. 'I didn't get treated to quit smoking,' I said. 'I volunteered for something else altogether.'

'Like what?'

The scraping sound to my left reminded me of why Marta and I were here. I turned to see Howard emerging from the door in the alley, dragging something large and heavy behind him.

'Did you get it?' I asked.

Howard grunted. 'Little help here?' Marta and I took a hand on either side, gripping the item. We dragged the thing out of the doorway and into the alley, where Howard stood it upright and all three of us stopped and stared at it.

'It's rubbish.'

'It's wonga.'

'It's garbage. People bought real money for crap like this?' Howard asked.

'Yeah,' I mused. ''It's lighter than I thought it would be. We just have to get it into the back of the wagon, now, and get it out of here.'

'And what about the rest of the house?'

I shrugged. 'Leave it, Ginge,' I said. 'The cleaners have got their hands full with the house. They told us where to find this thing, and there's nothing in the house worth collecting now.'

Ginge brought the back of the wagon to the mouth of the alley and Marta and I hauled the item into the cargo area in the back. We climbed into the back of the van, Marta and I, and I secured the item. Wouldn't want it to get damaged, now.

  
  


Everybody knew Trebbie. Poor bastard lived through a war, and it changed him. He became a mad hoarder. When he died, the council went in and found his place packed, stacked high with rubbish. Newspapers, old takeaways, plastic bags stuffed with plastic bags, antique furniture destroyed by the weight of crap piled up on them and the stains of juices from cartons of old, fermenting unfinished takeaways. He never threw anything away, and boy did it stink.

They were still sending in men wearing hazmat suits round the front even as we drove away with our treasure chest. There was one guy, his helmet lying on the grass, heaving his guts out on the verge outside. Lousy job. Who'd want to do that for a living?

That was what Dad always used to tell me. Every time I looked at something and just knew what it would be worth, what it could fetch at auction, he'd look at me with that eyeroll look and sigh.

'That's no way to earn a living,' he'd say. 'What you need, when you grow up, is a solid, honest job working in an office. This way, you're living hand to mouth all the time. Nothing's better than a solid, guaranteed pay check after a long week's work.'

He used to maintain that, right up to the day he got fired and ended up on the dole. He maintained that stance, even though he never found work again – no work for fifty year olds in town. Meanwhile, there was I coining it in selling stuff he was deriding as crap.

And then there was Trebbie. A hopeless case, poor guy. Dad used to look down on him, called him all sorts of names. Me, I liked Trebbie. He only wanted for three things; his baccy, which I'd sometimes get for him when he was short; his cider; and to be left alone. He never got the healing he needed, because everybody was like Dad, everyone looking down at this scruffy hoarder and seeing only the disordered man. But I knew better. I knew Trebbie. And I also knew what he used to tell me; that he had kept a fortune in his home somewhere. He loved telling me about it when he was drunk on cider; told me what it was, and where.

He was not long for this world; stress and a bad heart finished him off, and the council were going to have their hands full cleaning his old place. In a way, my Council-contracted contact in the sanitation firm was glad to allow me to take the armoire off his hands. Less garbage for him to shift to the tip.

Another steady job with a guaranteed pay cheque at the end of it. Dad would have argued with me till he was blue in the face if I'd pointed out how little these “steady jobs” actually earn, and how long and how hard you have to work for that little bit of scratch. Anyone with an ounce of sense could work out a risk / reward assessment and tell you that the cake was not worth the candle.

So the three of us were standing there, looking at the item in our living room. It had taken the three of us to drag the thing out of the van and get it into the freight lift, but finally we had it in our studio.

'This is Trebbie's treasure?' Ginge said.

'Yeah,' I replied. 'An antique French armoire, cherry wood, two front doors, three drawers, everything intact, just like Trebbie said.'

Ginge opened the drawers. 'Paperwork,' he said. 'The other two are empty.'

Marta lit up a cigarette and blew out a streamer of smoke. 'I don't get it,' she said. 'Are you sure this is worth cash? Real cash?'

'Sure I am,' I replied.

'Well, I think it's crap,' Ginge replied. 'Look, maybe your Dad was right. This isn't worth all that struggling for.' Cleaning his hands with a cloth, Howard ran his clean fingers through dusty ginger hair. 'I'm off home. Call me in the morning. If this thing makes four hundred, you'll be lucky.'

'Yeah,' Marta added. 'Three – way split. Don't forget that.' She followed Ginge out the door, leaving me behind with the armoire.

'Three – way split,' I said, rummaging around in my pocket. 'Sure thing.' I produced a key, which fit in the lock. Turning it, I opened the main doors in front of the armoire, and peered at Trebbie's treasure inside.

They were in mint condition, in their sleeves or boxes. Absolutely intact. A Dinky model Star Trek USS Enterprise, a Sixties Batmobile, a complete set of Captain Scarlet vehicles ... 2000AD Prog 1 and Prog 2, with Space Spinner, and a set of mint condition original Star Wars action figures and comics.

And right at the base, complete collections of Starlord and Warrior.

Carefully, gingerly, I picked up the first edition Action Comics Number 1 and the first issues of the X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Batman, and chuckled. The Mona Lisas of the comics world, potentially worth hundreds of thousands – even millions. And attached to each item, a receipt proving provenance.

'And Dad used to call this stuff trash,' I said. I thought about Marta and Ginge, about how Ginge would be able to afford a brand new van, and Marta could buy hypnosis lessons to get her to kick her smoking.

I picked up my iPhone and got dialling my contacts and buyers. 'It may be crap to you all,' I said, checking out the latest market prices on the iPhone and whistling at all the zeroes, 'but to me it's bread and butter.'


End file.
